Ceremony of Innocence
by Nyala Necheyev
Summary: Two Jewish siblings seek refuge at Stalag 13 as they attempt to escape from Germany - Rivke Yomtov-Ringel, a widow before her time, and her eight-year-old brother, Yankel Yomtov.
1. A Fighting Chance

Deep in the blackest of nights on the Germany/Switzerland border, two small forms crept through the bushes of a dense forest. One of them, a tiny figure of about three feet tall, could be heard faintly whimpering, hugging his dark, threadbare coat tighter around him as his sister, a girl of about five feet and an agile frame, brushed off a flake of snow that drifted onto her face, hugging her brother close.

"_Nedělejte si starosti, Yankel_," she whispered to him as they crouched behind a tall fir, "_Budete pocházejí. Vím, že budete pocházejí a jsou nás dostanete z tohoto místa._" (1)

The little boy wouldn't be consoled. "_Kde je matky a otce_?" he asked piteously in Czech. His sister hesitated for a bit, her blue eyes troubled, and then she hugged her brother close, whispering, "_Sh, sh…_ _To bude v pořádku_…"

The two children sat down on a dark stump, waiting for someone.

Just then, the whole stump quaked, as though trying to throw them off. Yankel gave a little scream before his frightened sister clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Y'mind?" asked the stump. Wide-eyed, the two children jumped to their feet and scurried back aways, unable to believe what had just happened. Then something even more incredible happened – the top of the stump lifted off its rotting perch to reveal a tall, slender man beneath it, clad in black. The kids backed away further into the surrounding brush, speechless as the guy climbed out to allow another character up – a second man in black, only this time his short and stocky frame completed the entire Abbot and Costello effect.

Brushing off some fungi powder from his hands, the tall one looked at the two kids speculatively, his keen blue eyes searching them over with one quick sweep. "You the two little 'uns we're s'posed to be pickin' up?" he asked. His distinct cockney accent made it hard for the girl to translate, at first.

"_Ano_," she nodded an affirmative, "I em Rivke, and dhis is my brudder Yankel. You are from _Stalag_ 13?"

Corporal Newkirk nodded an affirmative. "Yeah, come on," he instructed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the hollow stump, "Let's get ya outta th'cold."

They'd received the call from "Mama Bear" no more or less than twelve hours ago. Colonel Hogan, the ranking POW officer, had answered the call after Kinch, the local, dark-skinned radio monitor, had picked it up.

"Mama Bear, this is Goldilocks, come in." Robert Hogan was a tall, dark-haired man with the typical GI traits about him – a firm jaw, small, darting black eyes; the usual. He couldn't be called unhandsome, and his shabby leather jacket and cap only added to the charm. His foxishly keen mind was a whole other thing all together.

"Good to hear," said the man at the other end of the line, "We've got a couple of packages for you to pick up, two small ones."

Hogan scowled in surprise. "Small" packages typically meant children or any other kind of progeny. There had to be some confusion; _Stalag_ 13 was a halfway house for escaping prisoners of war, not a childcare center. "Uh, you mind repeating that, Mama Bear?"

"Two small packages are headed your way and will be arriving at around 0320 hours. Do you copy?"

What the…?

"Yeah, we copy, Mama Bear," Hogan replied, giving Kinch a significant look. Kinch just shrugged back, not sure he understood it either. "Are there any details on this delivery I should know about?"

"Do not, repeat, do _not_ let them be discovered. These are sensitive packages – handle with care. Mama Bear out."

Inside Barracks Two, a group of men, all soldiers who had been captured by the Nazis and assigned to a _stalag_, or POW camp, were hanging around a wooden table in the center of the large rectangular room that served as both kitchen, bedroom and board room for most of them. Some were sipping warm coffee out of tin mugs. Others were either sitting around the table or standing by the stove that served as the central source of heat in the otherwise very chilly establishment.

Two sergeants, a thin-faced blonde named Andrew Carter and a tall, dark man, "Kinch" Kinchloe, were sitting at the end of the small table playing checkers. Naturally, Carter was winning. Truth be told, playing Checkers and blowing things up were really the only things the tech soldier was really good at. However, he still was an invaluable part of the team that made up the _Stalag_ 13 Underground Base.

Finally, the bunk bed nearest the two men rose up to reveal a folding wooden ladder underneath which connected to a tunnel they'd dug two years ago. Jumping to their feet, Carter and Kinch hurried over to greet their friends and the expected new arrivals, Checkers game completely forgotten.

"Hi, guys!" Carter beamed as Newkirk's grease-blackened face appeared first, "You're right on time! Did you find them?"

"They was sittin' right on top of us," Newkirk replied, stepping off the ladder into the barracks. Turning back toward the ladder, he bent down and hoisted a little, dark-haired boy out of the tunnel, setting him down onto the top bunk before returning an eye to the second escapee. Offering her a hand, Newkirk led up a lovely yet cold-looking woman of about nineteen, with long dark hair plaited firmly down her back and large, expressive brown eyes, hardened by the losses she'd suffered growing up in a Jewish _shtetl_ among an anti-Semitic nation. Nodding courteously to Corporal Newkirk, she glanced down at the small Frenchman who was following her up into the open.

"Hey!" Carter grinned with a friendly air. The woman gave him a polite smile, and then turned her attention to the little boy on the bed above the tunnel entrance. He was kicking his feet, as all eight-year-olds tended to do, against the bedstead, a brave little boy in a brand new world. The first two kicks activated the closing device, and LeBeau gave a small shout and dove onto the barracks floor just in time. Carter and Kinch laughed out loud at the Corporal's misfortune, and even the woman's mouth twitched into a smile as she sent the shorter man an apologetic look.

Rattling off in something that sounded like Polish or Russian, the woman ordered the boy to get down. The latter just giggled and pointed at Newkirk, obviously blaming him for his ascended perch. The woman gave him an exasperated glare and warned him something, probably telling him not to fall off, and then turned to the surrounding men.

"I em Rivke Yomtov, and thet on the bunk is my brother, Yankel." Her accent, though not perfect, was improving with use. "I em sorry for the accident, LeBeau."

"No problem, mademoiselle," LeBeau replied, nursing his bruised ankle, which had been whacked by the folding ladder. Rivke noticed, and offered to take a look at it.

"I em good with injuries," she explained, "In my shtetl, I helped heal the victims of mobs and pogroms."

LeBeau smiled and nodded, eager for an excuse to get closer to the lady. "Merci, mademoiselle," he thanked her, and, slipping off his boot and sock, he let her look at the throbbing ankle as they sat on the bunk beside the tunnel entrance.

"Hmm…" Rivke said, looking it over with the skeptical look of an expert, "It looks as though the bone were merely bruised. It will hurt like a sword for a few days, but eventually it should heal up on its own. Simply," she smiled wryly, "You hev a fifty-percent chance of living."

LeBeau laughed appreciatively and replaced the sock and shoe. Standing from the bed, Rivke looked inquisitively at the two men, and the third coming from a separate room, wearing a brown leather jacket and an American uniform cap.

"Oh, sorry," said Newkirk, realizing her curiosity, "These are Sergeants Carter and Kinchloe. Carter's our resident pyromaniac, and Kinch operates the radio."

"And I'm Colonel Hogan," announced the third individual, catching the attention of the other three men and the two visitors, "Ranking POW officer. Welcome to _Stalag_ 13, Ms. Yomtov." The handsome officer offered his hand, and, with a small waver of hesitation, Rivke accepted it and the two shook hands.

"_Jsou Americká_?" (3) Yankel asked suddenly, his eyes bright. He had heard a lot about the Americans – They sounded so cool, flying through the bomb-ridden skies in their B22's, defeating the evil Nazis who threatened to crush him and everything he'd ever known. Hogan glanced up, smiling at the boy, then looked to his sister for a translation.

Rivke looked almost embarrassed for her brother. "My brother, Yankel… he, eh, asks if you are American?" she explained.

"How do I tell him yes?"

"_Ano_."

Turning his attention back to the little imp on the top bunk, Hogan approached him and said, "_Ano, Yankel_."

Yankel squirmed on the mattress in excitement at meeting one of his heroes. Never mind that Carter was American too – he was blonde and looked too much like a _goy_. "_Jsi to úžasné_!" the Jewish boy cheered, and Hogan hoisted him off the high-standing bed and set him down safely on the floor.

Now on the floor, Yankel proceeded to explore the confines of his temporary new home. Looking with wonder at the stove, which his own family had been too poor to obtain, the child experimented with how hot it was within different perimeters of the stove. It was hottest near the center, he soon discovered, and put his singed fingers into his mouth to cool off as he continued to explore. Naturally, Rivke chided him for being such a _kibitznik_, whatever that was, and pretty soon the boy was impertinently ignoring her, much to his big sister's frustration.

Watching the two siblings, Newkirk was reminded of his own sister back home, and how, before the war, they had always argued about this, that, and the other, and eventually they had installed an intense security system just to keep the other out of each other's rooms. A smile crossed his face, and then the call for lights-out came bull-dozing through the scene, and the two Jewish kids were hidden and the rest of the occupants went to bed.

It was about midnight when Rivke Yomtov awoke, her mind full of terrible memories of the day the Nazis had invaded the only home she had ever known, the only place she'd ever thought she'd feel safe, and destroyed it, herding her people like cattle as the terrified Jews tried to run out of danger. That day had been intended to be the best day of her life – the day she married her childhood friend, Nachman Ringel, but the _goyim_ had ruined it for her. Now she was homeless, her little brother the only family she knew she had left. There was no way she could return to those peaceful, happy days of simple, day-to-day life in the _shtetl._ The Nazis had seen to that.

Her mind crowded, Rivke checked to make sure that Yankel was asleep and then got up from her pallet on the tunnel's packed-dirt floor, putting on her coat and heading toward the exit into the woods. She needed some fresh air, and the dirt drifting through the tunnel air was not going to be good for either her or Yankel's over-all health. However, Yankel was a resilient boy, and he was already asleep, so Rivke didn't wake him.

Sitting outside on the stump, Rivke remained still as an owl standing sentry, her dark eyes never wavering from the ground. She wanted to forget about the stalag she and her brother were hiding in. She wanted to forget about the murderers who patrolled its gaze. Oi gevols, she wanted to forget the entire war!

Yes… It was all well and good to want to forget. Forget the screams of the children as the nightmare their parents had talked about when they thought their progeny weren't listening stormed upon them en-mass. Forget about the look of shock frozen on her beloved Nachman's dark, handsome face, an ugly wound in the side of his face, blood seeping through his beautiful dark hair onto the dirt beneath the _chuppah_. Forget the plaintive prayers the _Rebbe_, _Chazzan_ and elders wailed as they experienced the forces of darkness firsthand.

She could possibly forget… but she could never, ever forgive.

Unlike one would expect, no tears fell from her cheeks. Her look was not one of anguish, nostalgia or sadness. It was one of cold anger and perhaps some hatred at the monsters that had done this to her people. As she stared at the ground, her vehemence shot out toward the ground, and, if it had been a physical object, would have zapped a small cockroach that was scampering among the leaves toward the _stalag_.

Finally, as the birds began to resume their song at around two o'clock, Rivke finished her prayer, stood up and crawled back down into the stump, having poured out all her anger into a heart-felt complaint to the Creator Himself.

`*'~

_RIVKE: Don't worry, Yankel. They'll come. I know they'll come, and they'll get us out of here._

_YANKEL: Where's Mom and Dad?_

_RIVKE: It's going to be okay._

_Kibitznik = Busybody, somebody who kibitzes._

_YANKEL: You're an American?_

_HOGAN: Yes, Yankel._

_YANKEL: You're awesome!_


	2. One Of My Siblings Is Missing

_This chapter is dedicated to my mother, who has emphasized the importance of _emunah_, or faith in G-d's wisdom. After all, if the Man Upstairs doesn't know what he's doing, then who does?_

(~`*'~)

"UP! UP! EVERBODY UP!"

It was the regular morning songbird, Sergeant Schultz. His loud, bellowing voice and 295-pound, rotund figure gave him a more comical, open appearance than his steel helmet and gray wool uniform tried to suggest. However, as complaints and groans of tired, sleepy men arose in protest of the early morning role-call, the sergeant made his shouts even more obnoxious.

"_Rous! Rous!_" he hollered in German, banging one hand on Carter and Newkirk's bed for emphasis, "Everybody up, up, up!"

"We're up, we're up, we're bloody up!" Newkirk moaned, his head dropping back onto his pillow. Five seconds later, with a resounding, "UP!" the German guard yanked off the thin blanket the British officer was huddled under. Gasping in surprise and indignation as the cold attacked him immediately, Newkirk finally surrendered and got down from the bed, sending the older man dirty looks and muttering under his breath as he got dressed.

In almost record time the occupants of Barracks Three were standing in formation out in the cold of the morning, the sun just barely beginning to peek up over the edge of the _Kommandant_'s quarters across the frozen-dirt field. Colonel Hogan had the chutzpah to look a little smug as Colonel Klink, the German in charge of the _stalag_, came out of the building opposite of his own. The aging Nazi, as typical, had the collar of his comfortable, warm top-coat turned up to keep in as much warmth in and as much cold out as possible, and yet he was still cringing as the frigid air stabbed at his pasty complexion. His comical, jerky manner was rather easy to mimic, as Hogan himself had done a few times, much to the amusement of his men.

"Repooooooort!" Klink shouted, eager to get back to bed.

Schultz went down the two long lines of prisoners, carefully counting each column, giving Hogan a nervous glance as he neared the men of Barracks Three. Hogan sent him a cheerful grin, which served only to unnerve Schultz even more. However, after the final count, the portly sergeant turned to his commander with something akin to jubilance.

"_Herr Kommandant_, all prisoners are present and accounted for!"

"Good!" snapped the shivering German, giving Hogan a sharp, suspicious look before shouting, "Dismissed!" and turning on his heel, heading back into his quarters to catch a few more moments or mechanically-heated comfort.

As the rest of the team headed back into the barracks to go back to sleep, which was strictly against regulations but nevertheless allowed anyway, Colonel Hogan kept turning the present situation over and over again in his mind. Two Jewish children – sadly, the only two who had so far been saved from the Nazi death camps. Both had obviously seen more than a person of their age should have, even the bright-eyed little boy who had been so excited about his new surroundings last night. Right now they were down in the tunnel below Kinch's bunk, either sound asleep still or waiting for someone to bring them their meals.

Why had these two been spared? Was it out of sheer luck that they had survived for this long at all? Or was it that there was something about them, something special that London wasn't telling him?

He'd have to talk to Rivke. She might be able to tell him something, and if she was reluctant, he knew a couple of tricks that could persuade a woman to talk.

"Hey, Rivke!" Hogan said, jumping down off the ladder and skipping the last few rungs. Heading down the tunnel, he started looking for the Czech woman. When no one answered but his own echo, Hogan continued to search and finally found them, looking at the eastern wall of the corridor and murmuring under their breaths, Yankel fidgeting a little bit as well. They seemed to be praying, so the colonel stood silently until Rivke whispered loudly, "Omayn!" and her little brother murmured in reply. Kissing the page they were on before shutting the book she had salvaged from her shtetl, Rive turned and almost jumped out of her skin to see the dark-eyed man surveying them patiently.

"_ACH, můj Bohem a Otec_!" she murmured, then asked, "What is it, Colonel?"

After a moment's thought, Hogan looked at Rivke and said, "We need to talk, Miss Yomtov." Yankel grinned when he saw his sister unrattled like that, and laughed, waving shyly to his new role model.

"_Dobrý den, Pan_ Hogan!" he greeted the adult. The colonel smiled at the little boy and waved back. However, Yankel's eldest sister was not so amused.

"What is it you want to talk to me about?" she inquired with a curiously raised dark eyebrow.

Hogan turned his attention back to the lady. "Why England's so interested in you," he replied, "And why, out of all the Jewish people in Europe, you're the first ones who have come to us?"

Rivke's beautiful dark eyes quavered with something akin to discomfort before quickly turning to Yankel, ordering him to stay put. Yankel gave her an annoyed glance, but obeyed, and Rivke grabbed Hogan by his jacket sleeve, careful not to touch his skin, and pulled him around the corner.

"Colonel," she spoke quietly, her brown eyes darting across his face as she tried to read him, to guess his motives. After the betrayal of her goy neighbors, Rivke doubted that she and Yankel could ever trust anybody un-Jewish again. "Colonel," she continued, "Perheps one of the reasons you hev not received any other Jewish visitors is because they are all either dead or captured. Perheps we're not as 'resilient' or 'advanced' as you _goyim_." She threw each word in his face like a bad name, having heard the same lectures everyone else in Europe had about the so-called inferior races, "Perheps we are not so lucky. Has that ever occurred to you?"

After a moment, Rivke took a few deep breaths, calmed herself, and continued. "My fiancé was an Underground agent. He had allowed me to know this much. Not even his own group knew he was Jewish until… until the day I and Yankel ran away." Her voice quavered with suppressed emotion for a moment, or was it Hogan's imagination? "I hev used my knowledge of my fiancé's secret career to secure a safe future for Yankel. That is all."

"All?" Hogan asked her unbelievingly.

"All," she answered definitely, "And it is all you deserve to know. Now I must tend to my brother." Releasing the colonel's arm, Rivke turned away from him, as cold as a stone statue, and returned to the spot where she had left her brother, leaving Hogan to mull over what she'd told him by the wall.

Suddenly, an alarmed, strained cry of, "_Yankel? Kde jsi?_" caught Hogan's attention. Hurrying to see what had the girl so worried, he found her searching the area where she had left her brother, anxiously calling his name, swearing in Czech that if this was a joke, it certainly was not funny.

"Where's your brother?" he asked her.

Rivke turned to him, utterly dismayed. "I… I don't know! He was just here…! _Yankel!_"

"Well, maybe he went upstairs," Hogan suggested, "You can't expect a kid like that to stay cooped up down here for very long."

"When his life is in danger, yes, I ken!" the Jewish girl retorted, "Go on up and ask if he went up. If he did not, he must be somewhere in the tunnels. Keep looking, please!"


	3. A Close Call

_I don't know why, but as I was writing this chapter, "Beyond The Night" by Rachel Luttrell kept ringing in my head. Maybe it's because this chapter, and this whole story, actually – follows the same theme; If you just hang on to life and push on through the darkness, you'll eventually reach a world of peace._

(~`*'~)

As the men were just beginning to get settled for another long day at Stalag 13, the bunk-bed/trap door all of a sudden opened up to allow a worried-looking Colonel Hogan out of the tunnel into the bunkhouse. Newkirk glanced up, and look with mild surprise at the expression on his commando's stern face.

"Is something wrong, _mon Colonel_?" Louis LeBeau asked from the stove where he was cooking the boys' breakfast. He had now added a stained white apron to his regular uniform, and looked as curious as Newkirk and the other men in the barracks.

Hogan gave his team a serious look. "Something's definitely wrong," he explained, "Yankel Yomtov's gone missing."

"What?" exclaimed Newkirk, "Why'd he do that?"

"Well, maybe he was scared," Carter suggested, remembering the time he'd hidden in the neighbors' house for hours during a visit because he'd been so shy. "I mean, I think I'd be kind of skittish too – the only kid with a bunch of adults – "

"Carter, quiet," Hogan ordered, "All of you, get searching. We all know what'll happen to that kid if he's caught out in broad daylight."

No other explanation was required. In fifteen seconds, all the bunks and chairs were cleared, and the occupants of Barracks Three were off and about looking for the missing youngster. If they didn't find him quickly, Yankel's fate was sealed and the mission was scrapped. The discovery of Jewish kids in a Nazi POW camp would be too hard to explain to even the bumbling Colonel Klink.

Meanwhile, Yankel Yomtov watched the guards pace back and forth inside the compound. He was fascinated by their glistening weapons, and had always wanted to touch one. The guard at the _shtetl_ had once allowed him to look at the gun, but never had the little boy been permitted to touch it.

Yankel hadn't sneaked out just to get a look at an AK-47, though. He disliked it when his big sister got bossy and started acting like _Matky_. Why couldn't she stop being another _matky_ to him and start being his sister? Back home, his real mother had often told her up-and-coming daughter to stop being so maternal to her little brother, but that never worked on her. She'd just give a little annoyed gasp of frustration and turn on her heel, her black braid swishing malevolently behind her as she continued to hang the laundry or wash the dishes.

Yankel wouldn't stand for it. He didn't like being in that dirty old tunnel while there was so much to see up here!

Just then, a hand grabbed the collar of his jacket and yanked him back behind the barracks. The Jewish child let out an alarmed squawk, but nearly choked on it when he realized that he'd been caught by a Nazi guard. Babbling franticly in Czech, Yankel tried to get free, but the large man wouldn't let go of his coat.

"What are you doing here?" demanded the guard, his face filled with surprise at finding a child in the _stalag_. He didn't seem so mean, but maybe he didn't realize that he had a Jew in his grasp.

"_Jse - Jsem ztracena!"_ Yankel quickly told him in Czech, and then said the word in his broken English, "Lahst."

Just as Yankel was about to give up trying to escape, a familiar, confident voice sounded behind the guard.

"Why, Schultz," he said, "You caught something!" Yankel had never thought he'd be so glad to see a _goy _stranger in his entire short life.

"_Han_ Hogan!" he said with relief, "_Ujistěte se mu umožnit přechod!_"

Hogan, although unfluent in Czech, figured that the little boy was asking for help in escaping the fat sergeant. He nodded to the boy, giving him a reassuring smile, and then turned back to the guard.

"Say, Schultz, why don't you let him go?" he suggested, "I mean, a kid can't do any harm, right?"

"Of course not!" replied Schultz, giving Hogan a surprised look, "You think I would take him into Headquarters just for straying into a _stalag_? No, I shall take him back to his parents. They're probably in Heidelberg."

"Um," Hogan told him, trying to figure out how to convince this guy that he didn't have to take him to the local suburbs, "Why don't you let me do that?"

"You?" Sergeant Schultz gave Hogan an incredulous look, "Colonel Hogan, you are a prisoner of war! I cannot let you out of the camp!"

Hogan gave him his best, trust-worthy smile. "Oh, come on, Schultz. You don't even know the kid's name. How're you going to find his parents?"

Schultz was silent for a moment. "And you will?" he asked plainly. Hogan nodded confidently.

"I've met him in the town before. Remember that time when - ?"

"Colonel Hogan!" Schultz pleaded, making a face. While the aging sergeant was often willing to look the other way for Hogan's sake, he insisted on being allowed some deniable culpability in the mix. "I don't _want_ to remember when! Just take him to his parents and get back here!"

"Thanks, Schultz," Hogan grinned, "You're a great guy." Taking Yankel's hand, the American colonel led the little boy away from Schultz and snuck back into the barracks, carefully making sure that neither Schultz nor anybody else saw them as he did.

As they went around the _stalag_ through the woods in order to keep out of sight, Yankel stared up at Colonel Hogan with absolute admiration. Finally, a grin exploded across his face and he threw his arms around the man, saying, "Děkujeme vám tolik, Plukovník Hogan!"

Hogan looked down at the little dark head and smiled. This kid was so sweet, so innocent… such a wonderful child. He must have been the pride and joy of his parents. However, a shade of sadness crept over his brown eyes as he remembered the reason Yankel was hiding in the _stalag_ in the first place. Why did people have to do things like this? Why would anybody want to kill such a simple little kid, who couldn't have ever done anything more malevolent than stick his tongue out at the guards around his home town?

"_Han_ Hogan," asked Yankel, "Uh… tetch, me, Angličtina?"

Hogan paused for a moment to attempt to translate what Yankel was trying to say. From what he'd figured out from Yankel's attempts at communication, the little boy had only learned a few words of English, and he still had trouble pronouncing those properly. "You want me to teach you English?" he asked.

Yankel blinked in confusion, then looked at Hogan, and then to the ground, then back to Hogan. "Uh… _ano_? Yes?"

Hogan grinned and gave an affirmative. "You got it."

Finally, they got back into the barracks. Almost all the men were gone, except for Carter, who was trying to get Rivke to relax. The poor young woman was close to panic, terrified at the idea that she might never see Yankel alive again. Her hands were shaking, her voice trembling as she prayed over and over again, "_Běžte, HaShem, ho zpět na mě prosím přineste!_" Her face was covered with smuts of dirt from her running through the tunnels, calling out and looking anxiously for her little brother.

"Hey, hey," Carter was telling her as Hogan opened the door, "It's okay, we'll find him, lady!"

"We sure did," Hogan said, announcing his presence. Rivke Yomtov spun around to face him, then she gave a small cry of relief when she saw her brother, his hair ruffled and his hat on crooked, his clothes a bit dirtier than before, but still alive and grinning. Falling to her knees, she embraced her brother, murmuring, "_Baruch HaShem – Baruch HaShem!_" over and over again. Carter looked the other way, in a sort of embarrassment.

Finally, getting up to her feet again, Rivke turned thankfully to Colonel Hogan. "Thank you so much, Colonel Hogan. Thank you."

"Yeah, later," Hogan replied, "I've got to go tell the others the good news."

As he left the barracks, his mouth twitched into a smile as he tried not to laugh as the beginning of Rivke's rapid Czech lecture on not leaving the building followed him outside, interrupted at intervals by a plaintive explanation on Yankel's behave.


	4. The Last Straw

_Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;  
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity._

Yankel scowled at his big sister as he sat on one of the captured soldiers' top bunks, his knees drawn up to his chest, his black jacket wrapped around his entire body to keep out the chilliness. His worn cap sat beside him on the blankets, and covering his head was a simple, crocheted brown _kippah_.

Ever since he'd gotten back from the forests with Colonel Hogan, Rivke had told him to stay on the top bunk and not go anywhere, on pain of getting his ear stretched even more than _Matky _or _Yente_ Matchmaker had. The English soldier, the French soldier, and the two other Americans had come in from their search now, and Sergeant Carter, the blonde one whom everybody treated like a child, had been one of the happiest to see he was okay, not because his mission would have failed otherwise, but because Yankel was alive and safe.

_Why do they treat me like a baby?_ Yankel thought glumly, watching Rivke mending some of the POW's clothing to pass the time, _I'm eight years old! They act like I don't know anything!_

Still, somehow he had to convince his sister that she could let him down now. Shifting position to where he was lying on his stomach, stocking feet flagging in the air, Yankel asked, "Rivke?"

"_Ano?_" Rivke looked up, one eyebrow critically raised. She obviously hadn't forgiven him for the scare he'd caused her.

"_Mohu nyní?_" Yankel asked, trying to feign as much innocence into his green-brown eyes as he could possibly manage, "_Prosím?_"

His sister looked up at her little brother thoughtfully, tilting her head as she considered it. Meanwhile, Carter and LeBeau watched curiously from the stove while trying to disguise their curiosity.

"_V pořádku I uhodnout_," she finally allowed him, nodding, "_Ale uvnitř se ubytovat. Je jasné, že?_"

"_Ano!_" Yankel crowed happily, clambering back down to the good old earth, "_Zcela! Děkuju!_"

LeBeau laughed softly and turned to Carter. "It's as though he's just gotten out of solitary."

"Yeah, well," Carter shrugged, his blue eyes clear with simplified reasoning, "I remember when I was that little. I hated being in Time Out."

"Didn't we all," laughed LeBeau, turning back to his cooking as Yankel started making the rounds about the long barracks.

Looking around at the varied, scattered personnel inside, Yankel looked at what they were doing with a child's interest, but quickly got bored. Noting a door in the barracks wall, Yankel moved over to it and turned the knob, peeking in, and then stepping inside.

It must have been Colonel Hogan's quarters! It looked nice, the bunks unmade, giving it a homely touch, as the file cabinet and desk to the other side created the illusion of a private office. And there was Hogan himself, filling out some kind of paperwork, not even noticing that he had a little visitor.

Walking closer to him, Yankel peered over the man's arm to see what he was writing. It was all in English, so the young Jewish boy couldn't read a word of it, but it looked like something official. Hogan then stopped writing and quickly turned, surprised to see Yankel suddenly appear beside his elbow.

"Yankel!" he said, laughing at his own oversight, "Your sister let you down?"

The boy frowned, then tilted his head like his sister did, thinking, and trying to decipher the strange words.

"I, good," he replied, guessing at the meaning of the colonel's question. If only he could really talk to Hogan! Right now the only one who could understand when Yankel spoke was his sister Rivke, and she never listened. Hogan, Yankel was certain, was somebody who would listen to him. He would care about how he felt, and maybe even be able to help a little, like _Otce _used to before the mean people everybody was afraid of crashed into his sister's wedding party.

It was so frustrating!

Yankel quickly looked down at the ground, trying to hide the fact that he was about to cry. "Omluv mě," he muttered, and sat down on the bottom bunk, facing the wall. He liked the bunks, and how, if you covered the bottom bunk with the blanket on the top, it was like having your own little bedroom. He'd never had anything like it in the shtetl; in fact, there were a lot of things he'd never had.

"Yankel?" Hogan asked, concerned. If he didn't know better, which he probably didn't, he would have though the child was about to cry. Getting up from his desk and walking over to the bunk were Yankel was sitting, rocking back and forth with his face in his hands. As the American approached, the boy tensed, then swung around to face the one approaching him, his little face full of anger and frustrated hurt from being treated like a _nudnik_.

"_Co si lidé myslíte jsem?_" he demanded in rapid Czech, "_Hloupý osoby nebo něco? Dítě? Také jsem! NE jsem! To došlo!_"

And with that, Yankel jumped off the bed, raced past the stunned colonel, and banged through the office door, storming toward the bunk which held the trap door into the tunnels. Surprised by this sudden change of attitude, Newkirk made an error while shuffling his deck of cards, causing them to collide and explode all over the place, and Carter jumped like a scared rabbit. Rivke looked at her brother unbelievingly, shocked at his mortifying behavior.

"_Yankel!_" she demanded, "_A pouze pokud myslíte jedete?_"

"_Stanoví!_" Yankel snapped, "_Jak, pokud je některý z vašeho podniku_." As he got nearer, the trap door sprung open to allow Kinch up the ladder with a new message from London, but first he nearly slammed into the Jewish child, his black eyebrows shooting upward as he grappled for balance on the ladder. Climbing back up the rest of the way into the barracks, Sergeant Kinchloe looked down once, and glanced at Rivke with a question in his dark eyes.

The woman just stood there, the mending on the floor, unable to understand this sudden change. "I … I do not understand what is wrong with him!" she claimed, and then apologized, "I am so sorry…" Hurrying to put on a coat over her dark plaid dress, Rivke Yomtov hurried to go downstairs to follow her brother.

Newkirk looked over at the girl with concern, pausing his job of recollecting his runaway cards. "'Ey," he said, "You can't go down there by yourself, it's too risky. An' what if 'e goes outside again?"

A malicious glare from the Slavic woman and two bangs on the bedstead before she jumped off the ladder onto the floor of the tunnel answered his question. Exchanging a look with the other four men in the building, Newkirk shrugged on his navy-blue jacket. "I'll go after 'er. You blokes stay 'ere and tell Colonel 'Ogan where I've gone."

Following after the young woman, Newkirk left the barracks for the tunnel network below, catching up to Rivke in a few seconds.

"Oy," he called, "Wait. I'll come too."

Rivke spun around and glared at him with annoyance. "I don't need your help to look after my brother."

"Sorry, lady," the corporal shrugged obstinately, "Regulations. Can't let civilians roam the tunnels by themselves, and tha' includes you and your brother."

Glowering, Rivke sped up. "_Zor der lign in keyver der eyver, in di kishkes a lokh mit a sheyver!_" she snapped vehemently, not bothering to look back at the pursuing _goy_.

Newkirk was surprised for a moment. What Rivke had just sounded like German, but it had a foreign lilt to it that didn't match up with the language. He'd thought she only spoke Czech and English!

However, judging by the tone of her voice when she said it, Newkirk wondered if maybe he'd be better off not trying to translate that.

Making a note to himself to ask her sometime how many languages she really did speak, Newkirk sped after her, and both of them led a furious chase down the tunnel until they both reached the open end of the tunnel.

Somebody had gone outside - again.

TRANSLATIONS

_Ano_ – Yes?

_Mohu nyni? Prosim?_ – Can I get down now? Please?

_V pořádku I uhodnout, ale uvnitř se ubytovat. Je jasné, že ?_ – Alright, I guess, but stay inside. Is that clear?

_Ano! Zcela! Děkuju! _– Yes! Completely! Thank you!

_Otce_ – Father

_Matky_ – Mother

_Omluv mě_ – Excuse me

_Nudnik_ – (YIDDISH) (Literally) Student by night/Someone who's only smart when there's no one around to witness it.

_Co si lidé myslíte jsem? Hloupý osoby nebo něco? Dítě? Také jsem! NE jsem! To došlo!_ - What do you people think I am? An idiot, or something? A baby? Well, I'm not! I'm NOT! So there!

_Yankel! A pouze pokud myslíte jedete?_ – Yankel! And just where do you think you're going?

_Stanoví! Jak, pokud je některý z vašeho podniku_. - Down – as if it's any of your business!

_Zor der lign in keyver der eyver, in di kishkes a lokh mit a sheyver! –_ A Yiddish curse. Translating it would send this fan fiction's rating sky-rocketing. Trust me – like Newkirk, you don't wanna know, LOL!


	5. A Loss for Words

_These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real  
There's just too much that time cannot erase_

When you cried, I'd wipe away all of your tears  
When you'd scream, I'd fight away all of your fears  
And I held your hand through all of these years  
But you still have all of me

Alarmed as the breeze from the tunnel exit blew flecks of chilly frost against her tanned face, Rivke's face became one of incredible worry. Glancing back at Newkirk to see if he was still with her, she felt herself wondering – Was it wise to go running out after Yankel? Could she be sure the thankfully-stupid sergeant Hogan had told her about, Schultz, would be the one to find her brother this time?

Corporal Newkirk met her frightened glance with his own concerned blue eyes. They had to go after him! But still… No. They couldn't let Yankel come back in his own time. He was a little boy, still naïve, even after all the horrendousness he'd seen at such a young age.

"Will you come with me?" asked the woman. Newkirk nodded. Taking that for a 'you bet', Rivke Yomtov's face frowned in resolve, and she hoisted herself up the wooden ladder with a determined arm. Newkirk followed her.

-

Yankel was so angry! So frustrated! Why did it seem like the world was tumbling down all around him? Why did it have to be this way?

"_HaShem_," he gasped, resting his tired body under the boughs of a chilly pine tree, "_Ach, HaShem, proč vám umožní věci získat tak špatně? Jsme vybrané osoby, je to řekl a stále je nechat tolik špatné věci stane pro nás! Proč, proč, proč? Proč nelze Mashiach jsou nyní? Proč máme čekat tak dlouho? Rivke tvrdí, že Nachman je mrtvé. Proč necháte, ke kterým dojde? Proč?"_

Remembering back, Yankel remembered that one _Yom Kippur_ when _Otce_ had been so fervently praying that he'd had tears in his eyes, when suddenly he burst out into a lovely, beautiful _niggun_, a sad one, begging HaShem to be merciful to the Jewish people in the coming year.

All alone in the silence, Yankel was still for a moment, and then began to softly sing his own _niggun_.

-

Rivke was running incredibly fast for someone in a skirt, a petticoat, and a long top coat. Her long, black braid bounced from side to side as she hurried through the woods, fervently trying to find her lost little brother. Newkirk was reminded of his own panic when he'd lost track of his little brother during the first wave of the German attacks on London.

"Yankele!" Rivke called softly, yet loud enough for one to hear her, "Yankele!" She added on the endearing suffix in a maternal gesture, as though to say, 'It's okay, I'm here, I'm taking you back home and I'll always be there for you'.

Suddenly, Rivke lurched in the air and fell sprawling to the ground with a cry of surprise and a little bit of pain.

"Rivke!" Newkirk called in alarm, hurrying to her side. The Jewish woman gave a tiny moan as she sat back up onto the wet grass, pulling her ankle toward her with a small twitch of her tightly-drawn mouth. Feeling it through the thin-worn boot, she remained expressionless until her fingers prodded a particularly touchy spot, upon which she gave a small gasp and jump, but otherwise made no move.

The British corporal realized immediately what she must be feeling for. "How's the ankle?" he asked worriedly.

"Not good," the woman replied with a sad scowl, "It's been sprained, I think. I probably pulled the muscle when I fell." Turning her burning brown eyes to her uninvited companion, she begged, "Please, don't stop looking for Yankele… He must be somewhere close. I can catch up –"

A sudden quiet caught her in the throat as she heard a tiny voice singing in the mournful tunes of a _niggun_. Newkirk didn't recognize the tune. Tilting his head thoughtfully as he listened, he absorbed a few bars of the pleading music, and then realized why Rivke was so startled by it. The voice was Yankel's!

"It's him!" they said at once, clearly on accident. Sending Rivke an apologetic glance, Newkirk jumped to his feet in an instant and began to head toward the voice.

"Yankel!" Newkirk called softly, trying not to be heard, yet still hoping to _be_ heard, "Yankel!"

The singing stopped, and Yankel's voice began to ramble out some Czech as usual again. Peter Newkirk hurried toward the sound, and found him.

"_Zadejte prosím není zabít mě!_"

Newkirk's heart stopped as he saw why Yankel was sounding so terrified. Two Kraut prison guards from that reinforced patrol Klink had ordered had heard the little boy's singing, too, and now had him at gun-point, deciding what to do with him.

One seemed to be more concerned about how a child had gotten so far from Heidelberg. However, the one aiming his gun was eyeing the ripped part on the chest of Yankel's jacket suspiciously. The rip must have been caused, Newkirk realized, when Rivke had torn off the tell-tale yellow star all Jews had to sew onto their clothing.

Finally, the German demanded, "_Sind Sie eines Juden?_" Newkirk felt his blood run cold. The England-born pilot didn't know much German, and certainly couldn't speak it worth a damn, regardless of how good he could fake an accent, but he did recognize the last word in that question_. Juden_ – Jew.

No, no, no, no, no… Newkirk's mind was racing. He had to get Yankel out of there fast. He could see the boy trembling, too scared to move. Rivke would never forgive him if he didn't do something, and Newkirk was pretty damn sure he'd never, ever be able to forgive himself. The problem was that all he had was a small hunting knife, and if he used it to kill one of the soldiers, the other one was bound to get wise. Besides, he wasn't that good of a thrower!

Finally, making a decision, Newkirk looked about quickly and grabbed his knife from its hiding place in his jacket. Thinking over his plan carefully before implementing it, Newkirk leapt out of the bushes and knocked the rifle out of the way with his free hand, sending a resounding fist into the German's face with the knife hand. Not letting up, the Corporal grabbed the guy's wrist and moved to stab him in the back with his knife. Peripheral vision kicking in, Newkirk saw the other soldier move his gun toward him and dropped to the ground a split second before it fired, taking the Nazi down with him. There he finished his stab, badly damaging if not killing his first adversary.

Next he got up to attack the other soldier… only to see that the business end of the gun was following his chest. The British flier froze in his tracks, hoping that the little boy had had the sense to run while he'd had the soldiers occupied.

"_Barukh HaShem!_" Yankel crowed, causing the corporal to wince in realization that he'd failed. The remaining Nazi turned a sharp look to the boy, and his glare was nothing but tell-tale. Yankel's grin disappeared, to be replaced with a look of fear and a distinct sense of "Uh-oh".

"_So ist er eines Juden!_" the German exclaimed, and in a small pivot, he'd turned his gun's muzzle to the boy, who only could make out a stammer of something illegible before the gun went off.

Everything else seemed dead at that blast. Newkirk felt an irrevocable urge to slam into the guard and stab him over and over until he was nothing but a pile of dead flesh, but his feet just weren't there. Neither were his hands. Oh, wait, there was one – holding the knife he couldn't use.

As though it were in slow motion, the tiny, ragged form of the Jewish child fell backward, jerking in mid-air as the bullet hit its innocent target. A small cry was echoed by a much louder scream of hate and anguish, and Newkirk looked from the body in the grassy mud to the pale, dark-haired girl between two trees, looking as though she were about to kill somebody.

"_Ne_… " she uttered, her brandy eyes burning, "_Ne, nelze provést a myslíte, že dostanete dál, goi bastard!"_

Newkirk got to him at about the same time as she did. His knife went into the corrupted man's shoulder as Rivke furiously ripped at his throat with her bare hands. Within seconds, he was dead.

Newkirk looked up at Rivke, his face splattered with the Germans' blood, and said, "Oh, god, Rivke, I am so sorry…"

She had already started crawling toward her brother's still form in the foliage.

-

TRANSLATIONS

_Ach, HaShem, proč vám umožní věci získat tak špatně? Jsme vybrané osoby, je to řekl a stále je nechat tolik špatné věci stane pro nás! Proč, proč, proč? Proč nelze Mashiach jsou nyní? Proč máme čekat tak dlouho? Rivke tvrdí, že Nachman je mrtvé. Proč necháte, ke kterým dojde? Proč? _ - Oh, HaShem, why do You let things get so bad? We are your chosen people, You said so, and still You let so many bad things happen to us! Why, why, why? Why can't the Mashiach come now? Why do we have to wait so long? Rivke says Nachman's dead. Why did you let that happen? Why?

_Niggun_ – A traditional manner of prayer in which the person will sing a soul-inspired, wordless tune, typically using the word "Oy" as words to express one's innermost feelings.

_Zadejte prosím není zabít mě!_ – Please, please don't kill me!

_Sind Sie eines Juden? –_ (GERMAN) Are you a Jew?

_So ist er eines Juden! – _So he is a Jew!

_Ne, nelze provést a myslíte, že dostanete dál, goi bastard!" – _No, you can't do that and think you'll get away with it, you _goy_ bastard!


	6. Cold

_The events about to unfold_

_Are beyond comprehension._

_In this hatred escalating_

_The fate is the same…_

_Nowhere to run, no place to hide,_

_We cannot escape the night._

Sitting beside her dead brother, Rivke bowed her head, her eyes staring blankly at the face of the murdered child, with every fiber of her being refusing the temptation to cry. Her braid hung down, obscuring her face to Newkirk, who was unsure whether he should try to comfort her or not. However, he knew that the shots from the Nazi's gun must have tipped off the rest of the patrol, and they had to get out of there fast. The Germans' bodies had to be hidden, and Yankel had to be brought back into the tunnel and kept out of sight. There was another problem – where would they bury him?

Everything had gone wrong, and this was no time to try placing blame or to try to figure out where it had all started. Right now, they had to unravel it as quickly as possible without trying to get it tangled even more so than it was now. This was bad, bad, bad.

Moving toward the woman and the corpse carefully, Newkirk touched Rivke's shoulder in a silent message. It was hard as rock, not trembling like the corporal had expected.

Rivke Yomtov looked up at him, her face frozen, her every feature deadpan and unreadable.

"We 'ave to go now," Newkirk warned her, "The rest of th' patrol'll be 'ere any minute now, and trust me, you don't want t' run into them sort when they're expectin' trouble."

Silently, Rivke nodded. "_Ano_," she murmured, then corrected herself, "Yes, you are correct." Not 'you are right' – that would have been suggesting that somebody had been wrong and made a mistake. No, she wouldn't go that route right now. It was best to leave the blame-placing for later.

Picking up her brother in her arms, she pressed the little boy's head to her cheek for a moment, embracing him in a last, departing gesture before glancing to Newkirk, who was dragging the soldiers into the foliage.

Drawing his knife, he mangled the stab wounds and artistically inserted a few scratches. He'd make it look like an animal attack, and that would at least send them thinking in another direction than the _stalag_.

Getting to his feet, he hurried to Rivke, put an instinctive, protective arm around her shoulders, and murmured, "Let's go." Helping the limping woman, Newkirk glanced backward occasionally on the way back to the tunnel entrance, wary of the shocked German voices behind them as the rest of the patrol discovered the ripped and "bitten" bodies of their comrades.

~`*'~

As the bunk's mattress came up with a small creak of jury-rigged machinery, all the men in the barrack turned eagerly to see if they'd found the run-away boy. When Newkirk's face appeared over the empty bedstead, spattered with dark, dried blood and holding the expression of a pallbearer, a worried chill settled into the surrounding company.

Then a limp body was passed up, and Newkirk laid the corpse on the bottom bunk beside the tunnel exit before bending down to offer Rivke a hand up.

Just then, Colonel Hogan came into the barrack from Klink's office, having gone to use his skills at reverse psychology to see if he could pander some help out of the egotistical _kommandant_. No such luck, naturally.

Seeing the shocked expressions on the men's faces, Hogan got a feeling that the worse must have happened. Hurrying to speak to Newkirk, he demanded, "Newkirk, what happened?"

Glancing back at Rivke, who was standing over the body of her sibling, murmuring a prayer under her breath, the blue-clad corporal turned back to the ranking officer and suggested, "In your office, colonel?"

As the two men left for the small, adjoining room, Carter inched closer to Rivke and Yankel, his blue eyes filled with something like sympathy mixed with concern. He was close enough to hear what Rivke was saying in a swift, running river of a foreign language that had been in existence since the beginning of time.

"…_Veyamlikh malkhuteh, veyatzmakh purkaneh vikarev ketz meshiheh, behayekhon uvyomekhon, uvkhaye dekhol bet Yisrael, be__ʻ__agala uvizman kariv, ve__ʼ__imru ame__n…"_

Looking down at the body of the dead child, Andrew Carter found it hard to fathom that even the Nazis could have brought themselves to kill such an innocent kid. He knew Yankel would never have hurt anyone, and he knew that the boy couldn't possibly have done anything wrong. He was innocent, and yet he had been made to suffer for something he could not control. His entire life had been snatched away, his family and him murdered or taken away to die slowly by inches, his friends and the only home he'd ever known never to be the same again, and why? Because some crazy jerk who'd gotten into power decided that a small group of simple people of ancient traditions were not good enough to walk the same earth as his own.

Sometimes, Carter was at a loss to explain why so many people still claimed there was an all-powerful god. If there was a god, why was he letting his own people be butchered and killed like animals in a slaughterhouse?

Deciding not to say anything to Rivke after all, Carter shrank away from the scene and returned to the letter he'd received from his family back home in the States. His little brother, eight years old like Yankel, had written a scrawled paragraph by himself, describing in great detail the Boy Scout camping trip he'd taken the week before with the other Webelos in his troop. Carter couldn't read it now.

Did that kid, half-way around the globe, even realize how lucky he was?

-

"Alright, Newkirk, start from the beginning," Hogan ordered, standing by his window but not looking out, "What the hell happened?"

"Well," Newkirk started, paused, then resumed, "It was like this, sir. Y'see, Rivke tripped and sprained 'er ankle, so I went ahead because I heard 'im singing – Yankel, I mean. Rivke said she'd catch up." The entire, depressing scene ran through his mind in snatches, and the Englander took a breath to clear his mind before continuing.

"A Jerry got there before I did. 'E immediately put Yankel at gunpoint, and 'is partner was keepin' watch. Yankel… Yankel was scared, and I jumped in. I killed th' first guard, the one with the gun, and the second one put me at gun-point. Yankel 'adn't taken the opportunity t' run, so 'e was still there and shouted somethin' in 'Ebrew, I think, which tipped 'im off – Th' guard, not Yankel. Then he fired."

Hogan felt like something had been yanked out from inside of his chest. The poor kid… He wondered, had Yankel felt the bullet hit him? What had been the last thought that passed through his mind before he hit the mud?

"Go on," he told the other man, not wanting to speak for fear that his voice would betray the raw emotion inside. His face, like Rivke's, was frozen into an unemotional plaque.

Newkirk shifted uneasily before continuing his narrative. "Rivke 'ad gotten there just in time to see it 'appen. She was… she was mad, sir, I've never seen anyone so affected like tha' in me life. She attacked at the same time I did, an' between us both we killed 'im."

"And the bodies – what did you do with them?"

"I dragged 'em off into th' foliage an' made it look like animals. I 'ope it worked. Couldn'a 'appen to a nicer couple o' blokes."

"Then you came straight back here," Hogan assumed.

Newkirk nodded in confirmation. "Right, sir."

Hogan stared for a minute at the floorboards before he was able to say, "Alright, Newkirk, that'll be all. Dismissed."

As soon as Newkirk had left the room, Hogan sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands, eyes closed for a minute. He allowed his mind to process what he'd heard, feeling like he wasn't really in the room anymore, that he was just a ghost half-in and half-out of his own body. Yankel… poor Yankel.

The last time he'd seen him, he'd been so frustrated, in so much turmoil. Hogan had the distinct feeling that Yankel had wanted to tell him something, but, of course, did not know the words to say it. Yankel had always been more daring and argumentative than his sister in the short span of time that he'd known him; always challenging his elders, brave enough to step out into a world he must have known would sooner see him dead than say 'hello'. Yankel had been only a child, too young to be able to fully process what he'd seen.

If only Yankel had learned more English, and if only Hogan had known more Czech.

Getting to his feet, Hogan started to leave his office, but hesitated. How could he face his men, who would expect instructions and perhaps a word of sympathy to Rivke Yomtov, when he couldn't hardly even believe the facts himself?

Nevertheless, he had to go out there and show his men that the war wasn't over yet, and go out there he did.

-

TRANSLATIONS

_Ano _- Yes

…_Veyamlikh malkhuteh, veyatzmakh purkaneh vikarev ketz meshiheh, behayekhon uvyomekhon, uvkhaye dekhol bet Yisrael, be__ʻ__agala uvizman kariv, ve__ʼ__imru ame__n…_ – (HEBREW, a fragment of the Mourner's Prayer) May He establish His kingdom and may His salvation blossom and His anointed be near, during your lifetime and during your days and during the lifetimes of all the House of Israel, speedily and very soon! And say, Amen.


	7. Losing Touch

_You won't cry for my absence, I know -  
You forgot me long ago.  
Am I that unimportant?  
Am I so insignificant?_

Rivke wanted to scream, to hit something and kill it and make it suffer for what had just happened to the last bit of home and a normal life she had left. She wanted to fight back and make them pay. How did her people stand this, being massacred and chased out of their homes, accused of things they could never have done, turned on by the very neighbors and friends they had tended when sick, helped when hurt, and shared both their joys and sorrows with for years. Why did HaShem let this happen in the first place? Had she done something wrong, that she had to watch as everything around her came crashing down in a torrent of senseless bloodshed and hatefulness?

She thought about that word a minute… Hate. That was at the heart of this whole war. It had been the cause of all the wars that had ever happened since the world began. Why did HaShem allow that emotion to even exist then?

_Perhaps…_ she thought, _it's because without it, there would be no peace or friendship. We wouldn't know the difference._

But why manifest it in this form in particular? She gave an aggravated sigh and scratched out a random pattern in the dust of the tunnel she was hiding in. It felt so empty now, with Yankel gone.

The sound of feet moving across the dirt floor, not her own, caught her attention and she sat bolt upright. She wasn't about to show any weakness. Forcing herself to purge all emotion from her face, she turned to see who it was.

It was Sergeant Kinchloe, just coming down to manage the radio transmitter. That meant it must be about afternoon. She watched him carefully, and then muttered the American greeting, "Hi."

Kinch nodded in response. "Hi," he replied, reluctant to disturb her by saying more. Rivke Yomtov had just seen her little brother murdered in cold blood right in front of her. Kinch couldn't imagine what he would have done or felt in her place, but he was certain he would not be able to master the cold, unaffected expression on Rivke's small, pallid face.

As Kinchloe sat down to begin his work, the tension remained, the silence being louder than words. Neither knew what to say to the other.

After about five minutes of silence, save the humming of the machinery and the soft murmur of air passing through the tunnel network, Kinch glanced at her, his dark eyes sympathetic and troubled. "I'm sorry."

Rivke replied with a small grunt of noncommitance. "Thank you."

Kinch got an idea; when he had been upset or disturbed as a child, his father had always given him something to do, like cleaning the dog kennels or fixing some machinery around the house, to take his mind off it. Perhaps the same would help Rivke recover from her loss.

"What's that in Czech," he asked curiously, "Jecoowee?"

A tiny smile flitted across Rivke's features. "_Děkuju_. It's, eh, complicated," she explained.

"Complicated is right," Kinchloe gave a small laugh, "But I'd still like to learn. Who knows, maybe I'll meet another Czech person who can't speak English."

"In that case…" Rivke stood up and moved away from her little corner, tucking a loose thread of dark brown hair behind one ear, "I could teach you."

Kinchloe shook his head. "I don't want to impose," he told her, "You've already gone through so much…"

"Please." Rivke sat down on a wooden chair across from Kinchloe, her mind struggling to decide whether to stay brooding for her brother or to focus on the positive for a moment. She remembered learning about the Chassidim, that ever-growing division of Judaism formed by those who believed that there was joy and light in everything, even in war and death. They had retained their sanity how? By focusing on the positive, finding something, anything, to be happy about in a dark and dying world. While Rivke's family were Lubavitchers, not Chassidim, there was still something to be learned from their philosophy. "I need something to take my mind off of my troubles for a while."

"If you insist," Kinchloe relented, feeling the ghost of success. Already it seemed that Rivke was slowly but surely coming to terms with what had happened only yesterday. He had to admire her strength and resolve. He knew very well that if he had been in her shoes, he would have stopped at nothing to make those bastards pay for what they had done to the Jewish people and all those other races they unapologetically murdered and slaughtered like animals without a second thought. He wondered for a moment what would happen to Rivke after she left the stalag, but his attention was immediately drawn away as Rivke snapped her fingers at him.

"Dobrý den… Are you listening? Now then, first off…."

~`*'~

Carter had just about completely finished off his pencil, after makes several false starts at a reply to his little brother, only to not be capable of writing anything because of recent events racing through his mind. Crushing another sheet of paper into a tight wad, all the pent-up frustration at the unfairness of the world converted into energy and, in a silent expression of anger any psychologist would term healthy, Carter threw the wad across the barracks with a vengeance. Bouncing off of the opposite wall, the little misfortunate fell into the middle of the floor, where it got kicked across the floor by LeBeau, who had walking past at that very moment with a cup of coffee. Newkirk wordlessly glanced up from the knife in his hands, with which he'd been carving a series of random notches and pictures in the central table of the barracks, his blue eyes darting from the wad of paper as it struck his foot to the naive American techie brooding silently in his bunk to the Frenchman going back to a silent but tense checkers game with Oleson before returning his attention to his pointless activity, with which he was trying to pass the time until tonight, when Rivke was going to be leaving.

He had mixed feelings about Rivke's departure; On one hand, he would be sorry to see the pretty Slavic girl go, while on the other, he knew she would be safer in England than she was hiding under a German POW camp. Likewise, he didn't want to risk running into her again after what had happened yesterday afternoon, but he still felt that he should say something, do something, but he couldn't think of what. For a moment, he wondered if Rivke was going through the same indecision that he was, but then mentally kicked his stupidly wandering brain cells. _Don't be stupid_, he told himself, _she's just lost her brother on top of everything else that's happened to her. She knows what's bloody got to be done – get the heck out of dodge while she still can. Just stay alive – that's what she's learned ever since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. There's nothing else that needs deciding._

Finally, Oleson broke the silence. "Well, tonight's the night." LeBeau grunted in acknowledgment and made one of his pieces a king. Colonel Hogan had laid out the game plan this morning, just after role call.

"Oleson will take Miss Yomtov out through the eastern tunnel tonight at 1100," he had explained, "They'll meet an operative in Hammelburg, who'll take her from there to the train headed across the border into Sweden. From there she takes a boat across to Denmark, who will see to it that she gets out of the territory safely." With Yankel gone, it made the mission a bit simpler, in a macabre sort of way. Without the child to look after, Rivke could move faster and be less conspicuous, because a boy with dredlocks and a hat he never took off would automatically stand out, while a simple veil would seem everyday to the non-Jews. "Any questions?"

There was no question about it – Rivke's presence would be missed by all the prisoners in the camp. However, the mystery about her would never be forgotten. There was so much about her that they could never know, because of what she had gone through and what she knew that they didn't. It was maddening, but true that sometimes there were things that the gang at Stalag 13 actually didn't need to know in order to do their job.


	8. Unexpected Complications

**Ceremony of Innocence**

Chapter Eight - Unexpected Complications

After those present at the meeting had dispersed for the time being and the prisoners had gone back to their various, pointless activities, the door to Barracks Two burst open to allow the portly guard, Schultz, entry into the room.

"Colonel Hogan," the sergeant announced, "Commandant Klink wants you to send three of your men to the office to repair his roof. It is leaking," he explained, as though a dripping rafter or two were the epitome of disgrace.

Hogan took a moment to analyze the information, and then replied with a cheeky grin, as he always did. Schultz suddenly had the sinking feeling that the devious POWs of Barracks Two had had something to do with the leak in the first place. "Well, you heard him, men," the American colonel told the bystanders, "It's hard to lose a war when the roof's leaking. Do I have any volunteers?"

None of the men so much as budged an inch, until Olsen, who had been absorbed in a heatedly intense cup-stacking contest with LeBeau, stood up to stretch his legs.

"Thank you, Olsen!" Hogan congratulated the surprised soldier, "Anybody else?" Schultz watched silently, a dubious expression on his spherical countenance.

With a sigh, Newkirk stood up, followed by Carter. Posthaste, Schultz herded them out the door, giving them explicit instructions to be careful while up on the roof. Before leaving the threshold, the German soldier hesitated and then leaned toward Hogan.

"Colonel?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah, Schultz, what is it?"

"Promise me you did not make the roof leak on purpose?" Schultz requested, like a little kid still desperately clinging to his dwindling belief in Santa Claus.

Hogan looked a bit surprised at his suspicions. "Why, Schultz," he exclaimed with dramatized indignation, "Why'd we do a thing like that to the dear old Commandant?"

"I do not know," Schultz replied shortly, "But you are _always_ up to _something_…!"

Hogan gave Schultz a little shove as the guard left, shaking his head in disapproval as he shut the door. Honestly, they really hadn't done anything to the roof, although it did sound like a really good idea. Too bad the forces of nature had come up with it first.

~*~

"Hand me that straight-edge, will you, Carter?" Olsen requested, holding out a hand to take the required tool as it was handed up. They were almost done, and he was eager to finish up as soon as possible.

Carter nodded and took the hammer from the tray attached to the folding ladder and handed it up to his dark-haired friend. A stray cat was circling the ladder down below, and after hours of working on top of the roof, handing up tools and watching as Newkirk and Olsen worked to repair the leak from above on the tiling and below in the attic, calling back and forth to each other to pass away the time as they fixed the hole that had been caused by a branch that had fallen in the thunderstorm last week, Carter was aching to climb down and play with the mewing little critter. The tear in the roofing material, hard to see from above, must have been overlooked during the initial damage assessment. The two others were sealing it with plaster until enough replacement tiling could be bought in town. All the stores in the attic had been ruined by the leakage. The problem was that the plaster was taking forever to dry in the wet, chilly climate of a German winter.

The black-furred feline looked up at Carter plaintively, her yellow eyes beseeching him to come and play from the surrounding pallor of her fluffy white mask.

"I'm sorry," Carter told her as he handed Olsen the straight-edge, "I'm working here. I'll come down in a minute, okay?"

Olsen frowned. "Carter, who are you talking to?"

The blonde techie glanced at his working partner, surprised and sort of embarrassed that the older man had heard him trying to appease a cat. "I'm talking to the cat down there."

"What cat?" Olsen's interest was piqued, and he leaned over the edge of the slanted roof, something like a cat himself with his balancing capability, and peered down at the spotted stray. A smile came unbidden to his lips. His sister back home had adored cats, painted them, sketched them, wrote stories about them – She'd even collected stuffed kittens from the toy store, distributed by a brand specifically for cat-lovers, Paw-Pals, Inc. Her innocent little attitude was recalled to his memory as he watched the cat paw at the legs of the ladder, begging Sergeant Carter to come down and play.

"_No_," Carter stressed, "Not now – Hey!" he gave an alarmed shout as the ladder began to slip in the muddy gravel. Grabbing onto the nearest thing he could find, the young man's hand found Olsen's forearm, and as the ladder ground to a halt with the top rung a couple of inches out of Carter's reach, the cat dashed away, startled at the commotion, and Carter's full weight yanked on Olsen's arm, causing him to lose his balance and slide the rest of the way down the roof. With a shout of alarm, the two men fell onto the ladder, tumbling off of it into the mud. Olsen gave a shout of pain as his foot got caught in one of the rungs, gravity pulling the rest of him downward.

"Olsen? Carter?" called Newkirk through the attic vent, "What's goin' on out there?" At the sound of Olsen's cry, the British pilot cursed and ran to the attic trap door, skidding down the collapsible ladder and bolting out the door to see what had happened.

Carter was getting to his feet, his clothes twice as filthy as they had been before the accident, also checking on Olsen, whose teeth were clenched to keep from yelping as he tried to move his ankle out of the ladder. Carter, trying to help, moved closer to the twisted leg, but made the mistake of putting his hand against the ladder, which pivoted sideways, pinned as it was between the wall of the office and a largish rock, in response to the added wait. Olsen gave a small "Yipe!" and bit his tongue to keep from blowing on the other person.

"Carter, back off," Newkirk ordered as he got to the two others, "Olsen, stop trying to move it." His harsh reprimand sent Carter a step or two backwards, a look of apologetic regret on his light features. Newkirk tried to shove away the feeling that he'd just committed an offense similar to kicking a puppy dog and focused on helping Olsen.

As Newkirk carefully lifted the injured foot to the ground, Schultz came running up as fast as he could, which would have looked a bit comical in any other situation. "_Was ist los_?" he demanded, worried that somebody had gotten hurt, and rightly so. Noticing the two men down on the ground, the sergeant turned his tiny blue eyes to Carter in more alarm than before. "Sergeant Carter, what has happened?"

"The ladder slipped and me and Olsen fell," Carter explained guiltily, "He's got his foot hurt, I think."

"Oh, that is bad!" Schultz commented in sympathy, "I must get Dr. Wilson! I'll be right back. Do not let him move the foot!" he ordered, instantly slipping into the role of a caring father that he always did when one of the prisoners were sick or in trouble.

-

About ten minutes later, Doctor Wilson had finished inspecting Olsen's leg, and the news wasn't good.

"The ankle's been twisted," he explained as he tightly wrapped a long cloth bandage roll around the injured appendage, "And the ligaments might be torn, I don't know. I could tell you more if I had a better infirmary than a wooden box with shelves and a folding table in it."

Hogan frowned as the picture he'd had in his mind for tonight became muddled, like some graffiti artist had just thrown paint thinner on it and stirred the colors around with a brush. "He's not going to be able to make the rendezvous with that agent tonight, is he, doc?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

Olsen opened his mouth to protest, but Wilson lifted a finger in warning. "Don't say a word, Olsen," he told the disgruntled patient, "I know what you boys are like when you're injured – begging for more." Turning back to the colonel, he gave an apologetic shrug. "Sorry, Hogan, you know he can't. It would just make the injury worse."

Robert E Hogan chewed his lip as he began to try to rearrange the meeting. He couldn't reschedule it; too many people down the line were depending on his being punctual. Nor could he send Rivke off by herself, or call the whole thing off. He'd have to send somebody else.

Upon explaining this to them, each team member predictably volunteered themselves.

"I can go, mon colonel," LeBeau offered.

"No," Hogan replied, "I need you to help Carter finish up that roof job; Klink's going ape over it."

The tiny Frenchman looked understandably put out. "But, mon colonel –"

"I'm sorry, LeBeau," Hogan stopped him in mid-protest, "You've got to stay here. Carter can't fix that leak on his own." Pausing, he looked at the others contemplatively.

Sergeant Kinchloe was the next to speak up. "I could go, colonel," the dark, quiet man offered. It was his silent tendencies that made him such a good listener, and a wonderful radio monitor.

Again, Hogan shook his head. "Sorry, Kinch, no can do. I need you here to keep an ear out for any calls from London. You know something always turns up in the middle of a mission." Kinch was visibly disappointed, and the colonel understood. Because of his color, Sergeant Kinchloe didn't get to go out on missions much, because it was hard for a dark-skinned agent to blend into a mostly European population, especially such a racist one as Germany. But still Hogan held firm; this was no ordinary mission. They were dealing with one of the few Jewish escapees, and now was not a time to leave an unprofessional at the receiver.

"Well, that leaves me –"

"An' me," Newkirk interrupted, "Sorry, colonel." All the men looked surprised. Peter Newkirk had been unusually quiet ever since the death and burial of Yankel Yomtov, and had been noticeably avoiding conversation for some reason. Hogan and the others felt sympathetic for him; unlike the rest of them, the RAF pilot had actually been there and seen the little boy die at the hands of those Nazi bastards. It was hard to imagine what had been going on inside the man's head afterwards.

Another odd thing was that usually Newkirk was the first to volunteer for a mission, especially if it involved women. This was the first time he'd spoken up after bringing Olsen into the barracks.

"That's okay, Newkirk," Hogan declined his offer, "I can do it."

"No, sir," Newkirk told him, standing up from the table, "I'd like t' do this run. Y'see, me and Rivke, we 'aven't talked for a while, an' I think it'd be nice t' be able to see 'er off, make sure she goes safely."

The rest of his reasons didn't need to be spoken. Hogan already knew that this might be the last chance Newkirk might have to apologize for his role in Yankel's death, and to offer his condolences. Newkirk also didn't like it when Colonel Hogan went off on missions without somebody else with him, because of the tradition that you never let an officer go on a dangerous mission alone and undefended.

"Alright, Newkirk," Hogan replied, bowing to reason this once, "Go ahead and get ready. You leave in…" he checked his watch, "two hours."


	9. The Terms of Friendship

**Ceremony of Innocence**

**Chapter Nine: The Terms of Friendship**

That night, Rivke's heart was beating a staccato in her chest, and her fear had stirred up butterflies that had no business being in the stomach of someone who followed the laws of Kashrut. (1) Tonight was the night she was leaving the semi-security of Stalag 13, and she would have to protect herself once again. The American colonel had told her the plan – Olsen was going to take her into the woods to meet a trusted civilian agent and from there on, she would be relying on the Underground and her own instincts to survive until she got to a drop-off point in the little country of Denmark, where a submarine would take her to London so she could share what little information her husband had shared with her about an unfinished reconnaissance mission he'd been working on with some of his fellow agents in Czechoslavakia.

Right now, she was in the only place where she didn't feel so alone – in the tunnel where a small cavity had been dug beside it, just large enough to fit in the tarp-wrapped body of a small boy. Rivke felt empty without her little brother, and hadn't been able to even mourn him yet. She promised herself, however, that she would complete the month of "Sitting Shiva" as soon as she got to London and could do so without exposing herself and joining Yankel in the long wait for the Mashiach to come. (2)

_I don't want to leave you, Yankele_, she whispered so quietly that it was more of a thought than a voiced entreaty,_ I have never pictured surviving without you_. Her hand trailed to the small pile of loose dirt against the wall, and the longing grew so harsh within her that a single tear dripped down her cheek in remembrance of the happy imp that had once been the light of her life.

Just then, the sound of footsteps around the corner made her quickly regather her steely composure, a finger speedily taking care of the unwanted tear. Standing up, Rivke tried to pretend that she hadn't been sitting beside her brother's grave as Carter came down the hallway.

"Hey, Rivke," the American greeted her, an uncertain attempt at a smile on his youthful face, "I wanted to tell you that there's been a change of plans. Olsen's hurt, so Newkirk's taking you out to meet Vogel."

He stopped talking when he realized where he was, embarrassed that he might have interrupted a private moment. Instead, Rivke gave a small quirk of her eyebrow and stepped away from the wall, heading out of the corridor.

"That is all?" she asked, as though she'd expected more.

"Um… yeah," Carter muttered, staring at his feet. Rivke nodded and continued to walk away, until the former spoke up again. "I – I'm sorry for your loss, Miss Yomtov. I'm really sorry."

There was a moment of silence, as Rivke stood very still for a moment, trying to allow the words to sink in without letting down her guard. Finally, she said with a voice that almost cracked, "Thank you, Sergeant. Be safe."

-

That night, Newkirk and Rivke made the trek through the clustered, dark woods without a flashlight, not exchanging a word even though they both wanted to very much. They each were trying to deal with the murder they'd seen in their own way, and neither way was what would have been considered healthy by any psychologist.

Finally they reached the point. Rivke glanced at her companion questioningly as Newkirk stopped and checked the time, the dial of his watch only lit by a tiny spot of moonlight.

"'E's late," Peter whispered, crouching behind a tall shrubbery as Rivke did the same, "Stay quiet."

They waited silently, Rivke not daring to breathe for her instinct that something had gone terribly wrong. She had these intuitions some times; her mother had called them "G-d's whispers". Every woman had them, the aging woman had explained when her daughter had known three seconds before Yankel came in from the _cheder_(3) that he would not do so well in class that day. This time, alarm bells were ringing like crazy.

Newkirk, himself, was getting the sense that something had gone awry with the plan. Pulling a gun out of his belt, he sat still, tense as a coiled spring.

Finally, Mr. Vogul, a local from the little town Hammelburg, made his appearance, five minutes off-schedule. He was a stout, bearded man, his hands worn from years of hard work putting food on the table for his family. A reliable agent and a man of sturdy character, he often assisted the Stalag 13 crew when transporting soldiers out of the country. This, however, had been the first time that Hogan had lied to the man about who he was helping. Regardless of how loyal to the Underground he was, the colonel had explained, Vogul could not be trusted to help a Jew. As far as the German farmer need be concerned, he was helping another agent who had vital information to relay to London.

Newkirk and Rivke exchanged a cautious glance, and the woman silently jerked her head in a negative gesture, her brown eyes meeting the Englishman's blue ones in an unspoken message – something was still not right! Impatient but wary, Newkirk waited a few more minutes.

Sure enough, Mr. Vogul pulled a coin from his coat pocket and began tossing it into the air, the signal that he was being followed. Newkirk felt a chill go down his spine. It had been so close! One more second and the POW would have gone forward to meet with him, pulling himself and the woman in his care right into a Nazi trap! What would have happened afterward… was best not to be contemplated.

Slowly and carefully backing away, the two hiding renegades got the heck out of dodge, not taking their eyes off their surroundings for an instant. As soon as they were about seventeen feet away, they stood erect and lit out for a safer section of the forest.

As they made their way there, Newkirk glanced at the silent girl with a curious expression. "'Ow'd you know something 'ad gone wrong?"

"I just knew," the Czech answered breifly, not turning to look at him, "It's a talent."

Newkirk frowned with thought, his mind returning to the issues at hand. "Well, we can't go back t' th' stalag until things quiet down," he muttered to her as they quickly got down, just in time to avoid the prowling eyes of a Nazi guard, "Something 'ad to 'ave tipped 'em off about tonight."

They were silent for a moment, and then as the Nazi went out of hearing, Rivke whispered, "So where do we go?"

Newkirk bit his lip for a minute before answering, "Plan B. They're a little family in town. They don't know Vogul, so it should be pretty safe."

"And how do we get past the guards?" the woman challenged, "Just go up and say, 'Hallo, we need to get through, so kindly move over and close your eyes and we'll be on our way. Oh, don't forget! Don't tell anybody.' Hm?"

While the concept was a bit tempting, Newkirk didn't think it would work. He shook his head and told her, "I go' a better idea. You speak German?"

"A little bit," Rivke explained dubiously, "Why?"

-

Private Dichtenwald was stuck in the guardhouse that night. He hated guard duty; nothing ever happened around Hammelburg, what with a stalag that had no escapes and a population that always obeyed the curfew. Stifling a yawn, Dichtenwald settled down as comfortably as he could and resigned himself to wait the night out.

Just then, the sound of footsteps and whispers caught his attention, and the soldier quickly got to his feet, even though it was probably just a couple of his luckier friends who didn't have to sit up all night in a wooden box coming to play a joke on him or tease about his ill fortune. Instead, two forms came out of the trees, a young man and woman, both dirty and wearing clothes that bore the tell-tale markings of hanging out in the forest too long.

"_Halte_!" he ordered in the best intimidating voice he could muster. He'd show these two idiots what missing a curfew was like. The two civilians exchanged a sheepish look and stopped where they were.

"What are you doing out so late?" he demanded in German of the male offender. The couple again exchanged glances before he explained.

"I'm sorry, it's completely my fault," the civilian explained as the girl giggled with embarrassment, "We, ah, we were, well… You know," he shrugged, as though that would explain everything, "And we didn't even realize it was dark until –"

"Don't tell him it all," the woman interrupted him with a blush, "He will know, if he's smart!"

"Ah, I see," Dichtenwald grinned in realization, "You were have a little too much fun, eh?"

Peter gave a sheepish smile in return. "Well… yeah."

"Peter!"

Dichtenwald gave a small chuckle. No doubt these two had an even more important curfew they'd also forgotten – one that could get Peter kicked out of town or worse. "Go on ahead," he replied, "I won't tell – this time!"

"Oh, thank you so much!" gushed the woman as Peter pulled her along, saying, "Come on, Helga…!"

-

"Tha' was bloody cutting it close," Newkirk muttered, a bit put out that Rivke had stolen the show with her little snickers and sighs, "Next time don' thank him, will ya?"

"Civilians thanked the soldiers in Czechaslovakia all the time," Rivke answered primly, "Besides, it is only polite."

"Yeah, sure," Newkirk shot back with a roll of his eyes as they moved quickly down the street, "Come on. There's th' 'ouse."

It was a simple but nice little home, one-storied, owned by the local veterinarian and his wife. They had been preparing for the war ever since the first one had ended, and Axel Kaninchen had built a bomb shelter and a trap door into the house with his recently departed father's help. Dr. Kaninchen had been working directly with the Stalag team for years, training the replacement guard dogs to be nicer to the prisoners than their own Nazi custodians.

Axel was understandably surprised to see Corporal Newkirk, and even more surprised to meet Rivke, both of which, of course, did not let him in on the secret of the latter's ethnicity. Kaninchen had been more than willing to let Rivke stay the night, and set her up in his daughter's room, the original occupant already having been married and moved out. Newkirk decided to stay only until he could get back to the stalag, which was fine by everyone else too.

As Rivke was sitting in the bedroom alone, she took a small, six-pointed medallion from her trench coat pocket and fingered it thoughtfully, the only physical reminder of her family. It had been her mother's, passed down from generation to generation down the maternal line, a beautiful thing crafted out of pure silver and centered with a single opal gem. Rivke's great-great-great-great grandmother had been given it as a wedding present from her husband, who had bought it in France while on a business trip. Ever since, the little star had survived several weddings and been held in twice as many hands, admired and adored for the memories it carried.

Just then, a little voice jolted her into the present, spinning around with a gasp. "_Hallo. Wer sind Sie_?" (4)

"I – I'm Helga," she lied, coming face to face with a little boy of about Yankel's age standing in the doorway, "Who are you?"

The child gave her an unbelieving smile and sat beside her on the bed. "I'm Boris Kaninchen. I'm here visiting my grandpa." Noting that Rivke was hiding the medallion in her hand, Boris gave a curious frown. "That's a pretty necklace. I saw it when you came in. Why are you hiding it?"

Rivke's heart sped up to the point where hardly an instant separated one beat from another. "W-why?" she swallowed and continued, "Why would I be hiding it?"

Boris analyzed her expression with the eye of an expert, his face kind and intuitive, with the kind of innocence Yankel's could have had if he had been raised in a more privileged environment. "You're a Jew, aren't you?"

Rivke, for the first time in her life, thought she might faint from fear, she was so terrified. It was either that or make a panicked bolt for the door. Noticing her terror, little Boris smiled and put his arms around her, snuggling up like he did when embracing his sister, a pretty blonde thing with shining green eyes and an almost musical laugh, the very picture of his mother. "It's okay," he whispered, "I won't tell."

Rivke's throat all of a sudden seemed to close up on her, and her hand tightened around the ornate star in her hand. Boris gave her a kiss on the cheek and slid down to the floor, his stocking feet padding across the hard wood floor as he left the room to go to bed, his curiosity satisfied. "Gute Nacht, jüdische Dame," he said in a loud whisper and, with a wave of his little hand, disappeared down the hall. (5)

The Czech girl struggled to keep from remembering her little brother, fighting to contain her bottled up emotions. How could that German child, fair-haired and baby-faced, possibly have reminded her of her beautiful Yankel?

An hour later, Dr. Kaninchen informed Newkirk that it was now safe for him to attempt to get back to Stalag 13 before it got too late and Hogan began to worry. Assured that he was leaving Rivke in safe hands, Newkirk went back to tell his friend goodbye. Approaching the door to Rivke's room, the corporal noticed that it had been left open a crack. Knocking twice, Newkirk eventually pushed it open with a finger, seeing that the lights were on. He was unprepared for what he saw inside.

Rivke was laying down, her face buried in a pillow on the bed, and she was sobbing for the first time since Newkirk had met her.

The cockney was reluctant to interrupt her tears, but at the same time he longed to help ease the pain that he knew she had to be going through. What had been the catalyst, he didn't know, but he still knew that inside, he felt much the same way. He started to leave the room when Rivke's voice stopped him.

"Newkirk?"

He turned. Rivke was sitting up now, trying in vain to hide her tears, which made her browned face glisten in the lamp light. "I didn't mean t' walk in ya," he apologized, "I'll just, uh, go –"

"No," she replied, "That's…" the young woman paused and took a deep breath before continuing, "That's alright. What did you want to tell me?"

Newkirk went over to sit beside her on the bed. "I'll be leavin' now," he told her, "I just wanted t' say good bye."

"Me too," Rivke replied hoarsely, wiping her eyes on her tattered and dirty sleeve. She looked silently at the foreigner for a moment. How she longed to be able to know for sure that this wasn't the last time she would see him! She didn't love him, no, but she knew that he was a friend she could depend on, the only one in the world who had a chance of coming close to understanding the pain inside her. He had been there when Yankel died, he had tried to comfort her out there in the snow, and she had seen him war with himself when he tried to avoid speaking to her when they met in the tunnels.

She trusted him.

"G-good bye, Newkirk," she said, knowing in her heart that she would miss him, but never see him again, "I will miss you."

"'Ow d'you say 'good luck' in Czechaslovakian?" the man asked her.

"_Hodně štěstí_," Rivke replied.

"Then 'odne shtesti," Newkirk attempted to say to her, "And stay safe."

"_Ano_," she told him, "You too."

-

(1) The laws of Kashrut are basically the dietary laws written in the Torah. Butterflies are insects, one of the forbidden foods. It's Jewish humor, LOL, and very dry.

(2) Sitting Shiva is basically a prescribed period of mourning for a person who has lost a loved one. Traditionally, the windows, pictures and mirrors are covered, you only sit on the ground or low stools, and you spend time by yourself to cope and come to terms with your loss. It's typically about three weeks to a month long, depending.

(3) _Cheder_ - (YIDDISH) School for Jewish children, taught in the synagogue or the teacher's house back then.

(4) _Hallo. Wer sind Sie?_ – (GERMAN) Hello. Who are you?

(5) _Gute Nacht, jüdische Dame_ – (GERMAN) Good night, Jewish lady.


	10. Epilogue

**Ceremony of Innocence**

**EPILOGUE**

_The moment that one thing ends_

_Is the same time that one begins_

_And return as we must,_

_We are ashes to dust, amen._

_When the days of my youth have all faded_

_And the memories are all that remain_

_Let that old September wind_

_Take me back to where I've been…_

_It's not goodbye, it's hello._

Sara Kochansky was playing Shogi in the Honors longue of the University of Houston with her friends, considering that this year, 2010 being brand new and all, perhaps she should form up a Shogi club for the college. There wasn't one yet to her knowledge. Her green eyes began floating off into space, until the snap of her friend's fingers grabbed her attention.

"Hey, space girl," said her friend, Jonathan Newkirk, "You with us, luv?"

Sara blinked. "Huh?"

Her English friend pointed at the wedged, wooden pieces on the board. "It's your turn, _sensei_."

"Oh!" The Jewish girl quickly studied the positions of her pieces and shifted her gold general to a checking position. "Checkmate," she told Jon with a broad, cheeky smile as the Londoner gave an outraged cry, arousing laughter from the other students surrounding them.

"Blimey!" Jon fumed, "Even when she's all zoned out like that, she always gets me, every bloody time!"

Sara stood up from the board and grabbed her hefty backpack. "Well, I'd better get going, y'all," she explained, "I've got to catch the bus and make it over to my grandma's before she kills me." And it was very likely that she might. Few girls nowadays were lucky enough to have a grandmother like Rivke Kochansky. Strong and intelligent, she was going on ninety and still had complete possession of her faculties. The only time Sara worried was when she was driving the short way from the Park and Ride to her grandmother's house, because Rivke had a tendency to drive a little crazy.

"Right," Jon snorted good-naturedly, "You're just runnin' cause you know I'm gonna demand a rematch!"

"Bye, guys!" Sara waved as she laughed at Jon's retort, "I'll see ya this evening on Facebook, alright? And Jon, Tia, don't forget, we're studying for that test tomorrow!"

The athletic, dark-skinned girl gave her a thumbs up. "With ya, babe!"

"Y'all have fun!"

With that, Sara extended the handle of her backpack and rolled it up to the entrance of the main building, looking forward to seeing her fellow Cougs again tomorrow.


	11. A Few Parting Words From The Author

**A Few Parting Words**

This song really reminded me of Rivke and Yankele, so I figured I'd go ahead and post it. It's called "Innocence" by Avril Lavigne.

Waking up I see that everything is okay  
The first time in my life and now it's so great  
Slowing down I look around and I am so amazed  
I think about the little things that make life great

I wouldn't change a thing about it  
This is the best feeling

This innocence is brilliant, I hope that it will stay  
This moment is perfect, please don't go away  
I need you now  
And I'll hold on to it, don't you let it pass you by

I found a place so safe, not a single tear  
The first time in my life and now it's so clear  
Feel calm I belong, I'm so happy here  
It's so strong and now I let myself be sincere

I wouldn't change a thing about it  
This is the best feeling

This innocence is brilliant, I hope that it will stay  
This moment is perfect, please don't go away  
I need you now  
And I'll hold on to it, don't you let it pass you by

It's the state of bliss you think you're dreaming  
It's the happiness inside that you're feeling  
It's so beautiful, it makes you wanna cry

It's the state of bliss you think you're dreaming  
It's the happiness inside that you're feeling  
It's so beautiful, it makes you wanna cry  
It's so beautiful, it makes you want to cry

This innocence is brilliant, it makes you want to cry  
This innocence is brilliant, please don't go away  
'Cause I need you now  
And I'll hold on to it, don't you let it pass you by

This innocence is brilliant, it's so beautiful, it's so beautiful  
This moment is perfect, please don't go away  
I need you now, it makes me want to cry  
And I'll hold on to it, don't you let it pass you by

I own nothing.


End file.
